Advent Letter 2013

Monsignor Chet Michael has composed an Advent message for 2013:

Father has a message for Advent. He wants you to consider the teachings of the three great figures of Advent: Isaiah, John the Baptist, and Mary. Here are the biblical passages for each which he wanted me to pass along to you:

Isaiah 53

1 Who has given credence to what we have heard? And who has seen in it a revelation of Yahweh’s arm?

2 Like a sapling he grew up before him, like a root in arid ground. He had no form or charm to attract us, no beauty to win our hearts;

3 he was despised, the lowest of men, a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering, one from whom, as it were, we averted our gaze, despised, for whom we had no regard.

4 Yet ours were the sufferings he was bearing, ours the sorrows he was carrying, while we thought of him as someone being punished and struck with affliction by God;

5 whereas he was being wounded for our rebellions, crushed because of our guilt; the punishment reconciling us fell on him, and we have been healed by his bruises.

6 We had all gone astray like sheep, each taking his own way, and Yahweh brought the acts of rebellion of all of us to bear on him.

7 Ill-treated and afflicted, he never opened his mouth, like a lamb led to the slaughter-house, like a sheep dumb before its shearers he never opened his mouth.

8 Forcibly, after sentence, he was taken. Which of his contemporaries was concerned at his having been cut off from the land of the living, at his having been struck dead for his people’s rebellion?

9 He was given a grave with the wicked, and his tomb is with the rich, although he had done no violence, had spoken no deceit.

10 It was Yahweh’s good pleasure to crush him with pain; if he gives his life as a sin offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his life, and through him Yahweh’s good pleasure will be done.

11 After the ordeal he has endured, he will see the light and be content. By his knowledge, the upright one, my servant will justify many by taking their guilt on himself.

12 Hence I shall give him a portion with the many, and he will share the booty with the mighty, for having exposed himself to death and for being counted as one of the rebellious, whereas he was bearing the sin of many and interceding for the rebellious.

John the Baptist, Mark 1:2-8

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,2c“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,who will prepare your way,3 dthe voice of one crying in the wilderness:e‘Prepare3 the way of the Lord,